“I’m sorry,” she gasps. “It’s just you have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
“What position are you in to laugh at me? I know exactly what I’m fucking doing.”
“So you know who I am? You know who my father is?”
“I do. I saw you with him. I even spoke to him.” While she was in the process of being beaten half to death. More than half.
“And you’re still here?” She blurts out another laugh. “You realize you’re going to start a war, don’t you?”
She’s the one who has no idea. I’m here to prevent a war, not to start one. I doubt she would understand even if I explained, as young and untested as she is.
“I know exactly what I’m doing but thank you for your concern.”
“I’m just saying, this is a really bad idea. Like, the worst idea you could have. But don’t worry.” She twists her head slightly, looking at me from the corner of her eye. “I’m willing to let this go. Nobody has to know you ever came in here. But that will mean you leaving, immediately.”
“Considering you were the pack joke hours ago, you have a lot of confidence. Nobody tells me what to do, especially not some newly shifted wolf.”
“Not even after you saw what I did downstairs? Are you sure about that?”
“Pretty big words for a baby wolf.”
“Do I look like a baby to you?”
Talk about a loaded question. Since there’s no way to answer it without revealing the intense craving she stirs in me, I don’t answer. Instead, I pay attention to the way her heart races. I feel it under my arm, thudding away in her chest. This is all an act, I realize. She’s scared out of her wits. I still have the upper hand.
“I could kill you right now,” I whisper. “And no one would know.” She smells so sweet, so tempting, the skin of her throat exposed to my greedy lips and tongue. All it would take is a single flick over that creamy flesh. I need it like I need air.
“You won’t do it.”
My laughter makes her shiver, which only gets my dick twitching. “You don’t know what I would do, little wolf.”
“If you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now.” Her heart skips a beat, but I would never know it if I didn’t have her this close to me. Though I don’t know her or anything concrete about her history, I can’t help but imagine someone enduring years of beatings, taunting, and bullying. Someone who had to harden herself against everyone around her out of self-preservation. It’s going to take a lot more than a knife to the ribs to break her down.
“Maybe I like to savor these things.” I run the knife over her ribs, then down along the flat plane of her stomach before dipping lower. “Maybe I decided I wanted to have a little fun first. But I don’t think it’ll be much fun for you.”
“Then get it over with.” She’s got balls, this one, and I can’t help but rouse in the face of the challenge she presents. I should have known from that little staring contest we had down at the lake. She may look small and weak, but there’s a core of steel running through her.
How tempting it is, the idea of melting that steel. No matter how long it would take.
I have to snap out of this. Our pack’s future is at stake, and I’m imagining tying her down and fucking her unconscious.
“You went to see your father, didn’t you? They summoned you.”
Her breath hitches, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. “Yes.”
“What did you tell them?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what did you say when you saw them?” I press in a bit with the knife, touching it to her mound. Her breath hitches again, and her heart takes off faster than ever.
“I don’t understand. What was I supposed to say? They didn’t give me a chance to say much of anything.”
I don’t find that hard to believe, but I also know there had to be more to it. “They knew about what happened here?”
“Yes, they found out about what I did.”
I wait for more, but after a few moments of nothing but heavy breathing, I prompt, “And? What else?”
“I don’t understand.” She lets out a whimper when I press in again with the knife.
“You’re getting on my nerves,” I warn in a growl that leaves her shivering again. “What else did they want to know about? What did they say to you? Weren’t they at all concerned?”
“I expected them to be,” she whispers. “I thought they were going to exile me. Okay? Are you satisfied? I was scared to death, but they didn’t do anything. They were happy I finally shifted.”